


Good Morning, Ruby Crowns

by smolder



Category: Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll, Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Labyrinth (1986), Oz - L. Frank Baum, Wayward Children Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 20:35:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16940274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolder/pseuds/smolder
Summary: ...because the Doorway might be just for them, a window into their heart, their very soul. But that wasn’t always a good thing. Children grew up surrounded by darkness, anxiety, hurt; could internalize it all - and then unintentionally tear a window in a space and time that lined up with that. After all it wasn’t only kids who wanted to explore who found Doorways, often it was ones who needed to escape.





	Good Morning, Ruby Crowns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lilith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilith/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I own nothing. The world I am working within is the "Wayward Children Series" by Seanan McGuire. I also use characters from "Through the Looking-Glass" which is by Lewis Carroll, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum, and "Labyrinth" whose screenplay was by Terry Jones.  
> A/N 1: If you are unfamiliar with Ms. McGuire's wonderful series I recommend you read it at once - but for the purposes of this fic I will give a brief descriptions, it is a boarding school for those children who went to magical worlds and when they are knocked back home they desperately want to find there way back - and there parents want to "fix" them. In the book they mention another school for children who don't want to go back - that is where this story is set.  
> A/N 2: Reviews are Good. This has been a subtle hint from the author - Please return to your regularly scheduled reading.

Susan lives in Maine now.

 

She feels sometimes when it is cool and foggy like this, when she can barely even see the lighthouse in the distance, that it is not so very different from London. But then that is, she supposes, because _she_ is not so very different.

 

Physically anyway.

 

She sips her tea in the early morning calm of the kitchen and looks out the large windows at the white caps on the rough water. It has been six or seven decades now since she noticed that she had stopped aging; not long after that she hunted down rumors of Eleanor’s school and found her place within it.

 

It has only been less than a week though since the last time _He_ contacted her. In this, she knows, she differs from the others. Only in her dream - always her dreams. The lion telling her again - _always always always_ \- that she could join Him, join her family, if she only just _believed_ again.

 

But she knows what type of belief He wants (the only sort he has ever truly been interested she became aware as she honestly thought back over her memories of Narnia, the indoctrinated awe of all it’s residents) is the belief of children. The uncomplicated, uncompromising belief of one who has not yet learned to reason. And she can’t give Him that anymore - even if she wanted to.

 

( _And part of her does, even though she knows it would mean giving up herself - all of what is Susan - to do so. And that is why she hates Him more than any other being._ )  

 

Her beloved little sister Lucy was a perfect expression of Him - always so very sure. Shining bright in her belief even when she didn’t have a single bit of proof He was really there or would ever return, even when they were all forced to live again in a world where He had no dominion and never would.

 

She had died young in this world - _coffin so small, lined up with five others as Susan watched frozen on the outside, burning inside_ \- Lucy had been filled to the brim with that belief just so that she would reach Him again.

 

Valiant, He had named her. _‘Valiant, Wise, Magnificent,_ ’ Susan had named each coffin in her head as they were placed in the ground that day and had had to stop herself from laughing hysterically. Because she - she was _Gentle_ and felt so very very far from gentle in that particular moment as fury burned so incandescently she is surprised no one around her can see. Part of her is unsurprised that is the moment she stopped aging ( _it certainly wasn’t when she first left Narnia, or even the second time - she was still a teenager than_ ) the rest of her sees it as why she will never forgive Him.

 

So, Susan is particularly glad she is _here_ and not at one of the other Houses where everyone wants desperately to find their Doorways - she doesn’t think she could stand that. The anger she feels at the lion over taking her siblings, parents, and mentors in the manner that he had is still a burning ember within her. Some days she wonders if it has replaced her heart in this not-quite-human body that now seems to be hers.

 

But she is not only one who has not aged because of contact with her world ( _or His, as Narnia truly was - but then, perhaps the Doorway only belonged to Lucy and the rest of them were never meant to go along, never meant for Prophesy_ ). Susan can’t help the smile the flickers across her lips as she sees the short woman with the messy pixie cut wander lazily over to cabinet - step absentmindedly upon the stool that is there for her to reach things easier - and then over to the stove. Her hair is a new color this morning, the natural blonde always takes well to dye and Susan curiously looks over the effect she was able to get of both silver and blue on the tips, it suits her.

 

She nods at her fellow Queen and co-leader of the Maine House when Alice joins her at the table and gets a regal, if sleepy, nod back making the silver earrings running along her left ear glint in the dull sunlight that is only just starting to creep in the windows. Then Alice blows on her own tea and sips it delicately - her nose scrunching childishly as the heat hits her tongue. But then, in body (and at times, admittedly, in mind) Alice _is_ still a child - has never aged past approximately ten years old (perhaps younger) despite leaving Wonderland, her second time, well over a century ago.

 

Alice, she knows, has her own reasons for being here - for not wanting to go back. No one asks directly (just as no one asks Susan about her family, her life before coming here, or Narnia) but bits and pieces come out throughout the years. She is also relatively sure that Alice could also go back to her world at any time but, like her, it would mean giving up a part of herself. Or else something worth even more than that - because Alice has always had different priorities than her. Wonderland is a world of Nonsense but Alice, herself, also has strong strands of Logic and Wickedness. From the stories she has heard, even when she was originally a child, it never seemed a perfect fit - and often frustrated her.

 

They both look up as a click of heels announces Dorothy’s presence, the tap of Toto’s tiny claws almost a part of the sound for how singular they are as a unit. The cheerful wave she gives the two of them makes the braid that runs down her back bounce, before heading over to the refrigerator to start on breakfast, her faithful companion an ever present shadow but somehow never in the way.

 

Susan snorts and then coughs as her drink goes down wrong as she watches Dorothy tie her work overalls at the waist, revealing an almost garish holiday-print tank top that clashes horribly with the sleeves of tattoos (beautiful odd things done over the years by artistic students, somehow blending perfectly together). The other woman looks over her shoulder and smiles cheekily at her, before returning to work, the shine of her slippers peeking out ever once in awhile.

 

Alice glances over too and smirks at Dorothy’s outfit.

 

The former Kansas girl, did not become physically frozen in time like they did but seems to be aging _very_ slowly - about a decade for every century. And while she still enjoys simplicity in life and prefers to work with her hands on a day to day basis (is their cook and handywoman), she is no longer as naive as she once was, can’t help but have been changed by the many years she has experienced.

 

They had a rocky start when Alice first introduced them, after Eleanor had decided this was her place.

 

“I don’t mind following your lead here as long as you’re not a witch,” Dorothy had stated in a teasing, good natured way, but with an odd sharp edge hidden if you knew how to look. Because if you knew her world, knew her story, you would learn that even when she had been young she had not lost any sleep over killing the Witches in Oz.

 

Susan had not know that yet, but she had known Jadis the White Witch and what her rule had wrought ( _how her honeyed words had twisted Edmund in such a way to cause guilt to eat at parts of him for years_ ) and understood that other places might have been touched in such ways.

 

But then she had thought of a golden mane and a name that made you _feel_ just to hear it and looked into Ms. Gale’s eyes and said quietly in return “There are worse things than witches.”

 

The air had tensed between them before the mood had been abruptly cut by the appearance of Toto who had been scolding them both. Susan was surprised ( _and at first unsettled_ ) that she could understand the, admittedly adorable little black, dog as well - but apparently he qualified as a magical animal ( _she latter learned he was older than her_ ) and she still had a gift of tongues in that area left over from Narnia. Oddly, this had endeared her to Dorothy.

 

As the fog started to break up, they were all awake enough to begin murmuring quietly about the plans for the day and any issues that have come up amongst the students in the last 24 hours, as they do every morning. Unfortunately, there is always _plenty_ to discuss.

 

Some were here wrongly, Susan felt - they still had that wish to return to their Worlds within them, sometimes buried deep. And she almost pitied those children ( _teenagers, young adults - it is hard to differentiate when you are both old and young - when even the “adults” around you are kids compared to your years_ ) because that hope that failed to die made them bitter the longer it lasted, made something in clear young eyes brittle and break. While their yearnings remained still a living thing inside of them, their wish unfulfilled, they could not move on - memory could be both a pleasant thought upon the past or a current trap of your future, after all.

 

Susan tried _very hard_ to encourage the former.

 

Most though are  properly placed - children who want nothing more to do with their previous world. Hurts pulled in so close it was not only walls but a built in integral part of them now or flung out defensively at the first available opportunity, the first ear that will truly listen. Unlike the other schools though the children here often have more than psychological wounds ( _the one true similarity between them all_ ), their physical injuries have carried over as well.

 

And Susan is sure that is a large part of what disillusions them to the _wonder and magic_ of it all - because the Doorway might be just for them, a window into their heart, their very soul. But that wasn’t always a good thing. Children grew up surrounded by darkness, anxiety, hurt; could internalize it all - and then unintentionally tear a window in a space and time that lined up with that. After all it wasn’t only kids who wanted to explore who found Doorways, often it was ones who needed to _escape_.

 

This manor ( _which the children have affectionately nicknamed Ruby Crowns_ ) was chosen mostly for its accessibility - and was then changed more as there was need of it. Many had missing limbs here, were blinded or deafened, sometimes brought to them hurt in ways that were still bleeding wounds. They learned a great deal of basic medicine out of necessity.

 

And hadn’t it been wonderful for children to explain theses injuries to their parents when they had returned - to want desperately for _comfort_ from these beloved missed figures but instead _not be believed_. To stare into a mother’s eyes and be told you are delusional while feeling phantom pain in an arm that was cut off in an honor duel when they had never held a sword before and didn’t understand the rules. To ask _where your arm is then_ and then watch her as she has no answer and cries silently. Wonder why they feel nothing.

 

The circle for group therapy is always a painful but cathartic experience.   

 

It’s where they talk about Sarah Williams. It angers Susan that those from the other schools don’t mention her at all, look uncomfortable when she is brought up - but then she doesn’t follow their narrative.

 

Because Sarah hadn’t wanted to go back - she was _taken._

 

Oh, once she arrived in the Labyrinth again she stood straight and tall and bargained, used her words as the only tools she had ( _and oh, Sarah had known deep down this day would come and learned to spin spin spin her words until no one knew up from down, know one could control her_ ) and carved as equal a place she could for herself beside the Goblin King. Because words were power there and she had used them unknowingly ( _dangerously_ ) once before: _“For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great....”_

 

They knew all of this because Sarah was able to communicate with them still through the mirror sometimes. Alice was best with it, understood this process the most, but also the most hesitant, wary of the other possibilities she knows can be used with mirror magic.

 

Sometimes she wonders if one day He will just take her like that - or perhaps arrange an accident like He did the rest of the Pensive line. So everyday she lives out her life in this manor on the shore as just Susan ( _not Gentle, not Queen, just Susan_ ) and every child she teaches to become alright in the here and now, to stand on their own feet, feel confident being them in _this_ world - and not need another - she feels that it is a little victory.  

 

_Against_ Him and all the various worlds who took these children wantonly and used their innocence - but more really, it is a victory _for_ them. And for her.

 

Susan stretches out her legs and smiles at the little snowmen print as Alice slides off her chair and wanders over to Dorothy as the much taller woman pulls cinnamon biscuits out of the oven. They bicker over what else they are going to have for breakfast while she snickers at their antics into her cooling teacup and the first student wanders in yawning.

 

It is a good morning.


End file.
